Terrorism (Northern Ireland) Bill

I shall not stray from the subject matter, but I wish to emphasise the concern and alarm that is felt not just on the Democratic Unionist Benches but in Northern Ireland that pre-legislative scrutiny can be extended to any replacement of Diplock, but apparently not to the serious matter of on-the-runs, bearing in mind the fact that there is no need or desire for the OTR legislation to proceed at all, let alone with such haste. The amendments aim to ensure that a message goes out from the House today that it is concerned that terror continues in Northern Ireland. Fewer people are being killed as a result of terrorism today than was the case 30 years ago, which is to be widely welcomed, and we will work towards the total elimination of terrorism from the streets of Northern Ireland, but sometimes Ministers imply that the Belfast agreement or some legislative process have of themselves led to a reduction in terrorism, and that those of us who oppose certain measures are in some way opposed to the improvement on the ground and the resultant improvement in the statistics. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. Having said that, terrorism does continue. Within the past few weeks we have had a number of serious incidents. An SDLP Member of the Legislative Assembly was terrorised in Strabane near the border with the Irish Republic. At the weekend in Londonderry, not one but two devices were planted at the home of an SDLP Member of the Legislative Assembly. Yesterday, we had the spectacle of the arrest of a Sinn Fein public representative, who I understand is being questioned in relation to the very serious matter of the bombing of the village of Claudy some 33 years ago. A Member of this House who has not taken his seat, the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Mr. McGuinness), has admitted under oath to the Saville inquiry to being the second in command of the Provisional IRA in Londonderry at that time. But that is to digress, and I do not wish to do that. The terrorism continues, albeit at a lower level, so there is a need for legislation to give a degree of assurance to people in Northern Ireland that whatever length of time terror continues there will be legislation to deal with it. That is why we have added four years to the expiry date, changing it from 2008 to 2012. That of itself would be a clear message to those who engage in terror that the legislative process will counter any of their activities. In Committee, there was some indication that the legislation would be viewed by a number of people in Northern Ireland as restrictive. It is difficult to see how that could be case—how any law-abiding person could be adversely affected by the Bill. The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Dr. McDonnell), who is not present today but was in the Committee, repeated areas of concern—arrests or the Diplock courts—that appeared to go back some 35 years and which may have been prevalent in the early 1970s but certainly could not be gauged to be prevalent today. There is simply no issue in the public domain in Northern Ireland now regarding those matters, and I hope that there will not be. However, it is imperative that the Government assure the law-abiding sections of the two communities and others in Northern Ireland that legislation to deal with those who engage in violence, murder and terror, whether at a lower level, as it is at the moment, or at a higher level, as it was in earlier times, will be available to give them reassurance. That is the rationale behind the amendments. I hope that hon. Members on the Labour Benches would agree with the thrust of the argument that there is a need not just to reassure the law-abiding community, but to send out a message to those being held for questioning, convicted or arrested that the law will be sufficiently robust and of sufficient duration to ensure that action can be taken both through the process of arrest and the delivery of justice in the courts, albeit tempered with some of the qualifications that many in Northern Ireland have had to endure in recent years.